


The Alaskan Endeavor

by AnOutlandishFanfic



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:33:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOutlandishFanfic/pseuds/AnOutlandishFanfic
Summary: Modern AU set in Kotzebue, AK. Claire is a veterinarian and Jamie races sled dogs. Love dogs? Love Jamie x Claire? THEN THIS FIC IS FOR YOU.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jenny Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Ian Murray
Comments: 27
Kudos: 103





	1. The Ballad of Roger Mac

June 11th, 2013  
Kotzebue, Alaska 

ROGER WAKEFIELD. 

I blinked down at the clipboard in my hand, then tentatively read the name aloud to the vet clinic’s packed waiting room. 

Someone named their golden retriever Roger Wakefield?!

Looking up, I found a petite brunette making her way towards me with an expression of annoyance mingled with completely founded exasperation. The adolescent pup she was tugging along had absolutely no intention of leaving the new friend he had made and let out a series of trilling barks that kept up his end of the conversation… almost as if in song. I bit my lip in an effort to suppress a smile as I watched their labored progress — no pun intended as the woman was very obviously pregnant — and shook my head as Roger finally gave up, leaving his furry friend behind. 

The pair arrived at the exam room door in a flurry of golden fur and she announced, “I’m Jenny Murray… you must be Dr Beauchamp.”

“Ah, yes,” I nodded and gestured for them to enter through the open doorway beside me, skillfully dodging the wet nose Roger tried to plunge between my legs in eager greeting. 

“But, please, call me Claire.”

She stood there for half a moment, tipping her head to one side as if examining me. I did feel like I was being scrutinized, but it was rather mitigated somehow by the fact that the top of the messy bun piled high atop her head barely reached the top of my shoulders. 

All of this was gone again in a second and she patted my arm on her way past, chuckling, “Aye, you’ll do just fine, Dr Claire.”

…

Roger nearly wriggled out of my arms in his effort to lick my face clean off as I tried to extricate him from my exam table. 

“Yes, thank you,” I commented dryly, finally setting him down on all fours. 

“He’s a bit of a lover, I’m afraid,” Jenny sighed, barely hiding a grin and taking no small amount of delight in my discomfort. “I don’t think my brother has quite forgiven him yet for impregnating one of his lead dogs.”

I stretched, taking a moment to shed my gloves and dry off my face, “Oh?”

“Mhmm,” she wrangled the dog back into a sitting position. “It was right before they started training this season and, of course, she can’t race if she’s  
whelping.”

I nodded, but didn’t comment, scrambling to gather the threads of what I knew about dog racing. 

She can’t possibly be talking about greyhounds, Beauchamp. 

Sled dogs. 

Huskies. 

I made an effort to shove aside my prejudice against dogs working in and being exposed to ridiculously low temperatures, forced to pull a heavy load and run on icy trails, but I apparently failed as Jenny interrupted this train of thought. 

“You don’t approve of mushing, then?” her voice changed, dropped lower and became more guarded. 

I hedged, trying out the new term, “Mushing?”

“Aye, that’s what sled dog racing is called,” Jenny clarified, not impatiently. “You’re against it?”

I sighed heavily, cursing my glass face. 

“I’m not sure I know enough about it to be against it,” I confessed. “It’s just the concept seems terribly unfair to the dogs.”

A smile began to tug at one corner of Jenny’s mouth, “On the surface, aye, maybe it would seem so.”

I let out a sigh of relief, having seemed to have diffused the situation, and turned to resume my post-exam routine. I froze in place, however, my hands hovering over restocking some trivial item when she changed topics completely. 

“Do you have dinner plans for tonight, Dr Claire?”

Where in the bloody hell did THAT come from?

Peering over my shoulder at her, I gaped, “Excuse me?”

“I’d like you to meet my family,” she explained, a full grin now on display. “To get a feel of how Kotzebue and Alaska really is… to see for yourself how a musher — a good one — treats his dogs.”

“I see,” I commented lamely, turning back around and sagging into my work counter, my mind still reeling. 

“Can we expect you at, say, six o’clock?”

I took a good look at her then, her face awash with eager excitement. It made her eyes dance and hands tap nervously at her side. 

I didn’t think they’d abduct me… hold me hostage somewhere until Joe — my business partner in the clinic — paid my ransom… and, actually, he’d been encouraging me just this morning to get to know more of the community members… 

Why not, Beauchamp? 

Oh, what the hell. 

Geronimo, as they say. 

“Of course,” I swallowed hard, accepting her invitation. “Can I bring anything?”

Jenny shook her head vigorously, beaming as she insisted, “Just yourself.”


	2. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Claire  
That evening

The Murray’s residence wasn’t far from my flat above the Abernathy’s garage — nothing in this tiny hamlet was — and I decided to walk the four blocks, taking in a remarkable summer’s evening.

Joe had warned me that the shift in daylight hours was more extreme here in Kozebue — twenty-six miles above the Arctic Circle — than where we’d reconnected on Kodiak Island… and I had to admit he was right. I’d made good use of the black out curtains that were installed in the bedroom, shutting out the sun that insisted on shining well into the night and starting up again ungodly early in the morning. I knew I’d have no trouble making my way back on foot after dinner.

It would still be broad daylight.

I rounded the final corner and scanned the lane for my destination…

“It’s a blue house with white trim… second on the left,” Joe’s wife Gail had easily informed me, for the Abernathy’s and the Murray’s were old friends.

Gail’s eyes had held the same suspicious twinkle that Jenny’s had when she’d invited me for dinner and I had a sinking suspicion that I was about to be set up on a blind date, hosted by Jenny Murray herself. My new patient had mentioned she had a brother when she was in earlier and if I were the betting sort, I’d place my life savings on him being the man in question.

How on earth did you let yourself get roped into this, Beauchamp? I sighed ruefully to myself as I spotted the abode.

Crossing the street, I took a few deep breaths, trying to steady my pounding heart as I got closer to the Murray’s front door. It was no use, of course, for it had firmly lodged itself in my throat about a block and a half back, and I was left trembling slightly as I mounted the front steps.

Wiping sweaty palms on my pants, I lifted my hand and knocked. Once — twice — three times.

…  
Jamie

“Can you get that?” Jenny shouted from the kitchen, the usual clamor of my nieces and nephew interfering but not obscuring her words.

Passing the youngest back to her father, I stood and answered, “Aye, I’ve got it!”

I wiped at the deposit of crumbs that wee Katie had left behind on my shirtfront, tugging at the hem in an attempt to flatten out the wrinkles pressed into it by the same. I shook my head and gave it up, knowing it was useless and that it shouldn’t really matter anyway.

Rolling my eyes at the ridiculous concern for my own appearance, I turned into the front hall and padded quickly down the plush rug to the door.

I turned the knob and pulled — then stopped dead as the door opened.

Christ, she was beautiful.

Her pale cheeks were slightly flushed, which made the small smattering of freckles across her nose stand out like brilliant stars. The curls were coming out of a plait that was draped over one shoulder and it gave her a delightfully adventurous air. She was a brunette like Jenny, but not nearly quite so dark. The light streaming in from behind her set brilliant copper highlights aglow as she flipped the thick queue away, making it disappear behind her.

One perfectly arched brow rose in question of me — and I knew I was staring — but the ability to form coherent speech left me entirely as her eyes locked on to mine.

Brown would be a woefully inaccurate word to describe such a hue as hers. They were rich like a fine whisky, a deep amber that all at once soothed and pierced your soul.

Pull yerself together, you clotheid.

I cleared my throat, trying to regain some semblance of composure and took a step back, sweeping a hand to usher her in.

“You, ah, must be Dr Claire,” I stammered, my lips still not completely able to do my bidding. “I’m Jamie, Jenny’s brother.”

Comprehension lit her eyes and she chuckled softly.

God, that sound.

It sent shockwaves up and down my spine and stood the hair on the back of my neck on end.

What I wouldn’t do to make her laugh like that again.

“Tell me, Jamie,” she kept her voice low, a conspiratorial gleam sneaking into her eyes. “Have Jenny and Gail been playing matchmaker with us?”

Raking a hand through my hair, I confessed dryly, “They’ve been trying to set me up for years.”

She tipped her head back and laughed outright and freely at my confirmation, commenting, “I thought so, but then I’d only met your sister this morning.”

“I’ve known her my whole life,” I grinned back at her. “Once Jen gets an idea in her head, it’s best to let her have at it ‘til it peters out on its own… unless it involves that wee fiend of hers.”

Delicate, slender fingers lifted to her lips as the color deepened in her cheeks, amusement still high in her voice, “Are you talking about Roger?”

“Right! Yes!” It was my turn to laugh. “You’ve met the numpty yourself.”

She grinned, “I’ve had the pleasure, yes.”

“Did she tell you he’s a service dog drop out?” I shook my head in mock derision.

Her eyes grew as big as saucers, nearly dropping the bag in her hand as she burst, “No!!”

“Oh, aye!” I scoffed, but my smile crept back in and betrayed my amusement at the whole ordeal.

“Too friendly… and easily distracted.”

“Are you two done bletherin’ out here?” My brother in law Ian stuck his head into the hallway, succinctly interrupting us with a knowing look.

“The food’s gettin’ cold!”

…  
Claire

Tucked between Jamie and his seven year old namesake, dinner was far from a dull affair. Jenny proved to be a remarkable cook and the table conversation ranged in topics from a nuanced detail of racing — that is, mushing — to my favorite animal.

“Do you mean in general,” I tested the waters, assembling another forkful of roast and potatoes, “or in a specific class or order?”

The little boy’s eyes lit up and I knew I’d found a topic that he particularly enjoyed… which was a stroke of luck for me, being that animals and their care was my field of expertise.

Thank God it wasn’t dinosaurs.

“Mammals!” He eagerly narrowed the field, then zeroed in even further, “What’s your favorite African mammal?!”

“Oh, that’s easy! A giraffe!” I supplied, my smile matching his. “I got to see them in the wild, you know… in Tanzania.”

This caught the attention of the rest of the table and began to field questions left and right about my time on the Serengeti. I didn’t mind, as they were happy memories, and soon won over both the younger Jamie and his five year old sister Maggie with tales of elephants and zebras and all of the animals they’d only read about in books or seen on television.

“Did you see any lions?” Little Maggie’s voice dropped into what I supposed was her version of a whisper — as if one were right beside us — and she nearly vibrated with excitement as she asked again, “Did you see any lions, Dr Claire?!”

I heard Jamie, the elder and my supposed date for the evening, chuckle beside me and I wondered just what sort of mischief this little one could get into when she set her mind to it.

“I did see lions too, Maggie,” I assured her, taking on her affected stage whisper. “We went in a truck at night and had big flashlights and saw them getting a drink of water.”

“Dey sirsty,” two year old Katie informed the table proudly, making all of the adults grin.

I bit my lip to keep from chuckling at her innocent attempt at being involved in the conversation, but agreed, “They get very thirsty.”

“How’d ye wind up in Alaska, then?”

This turn in conversation came from Jamie’s father, an older man by the name of Brian.

“I went to university with Joe Abernathy in Seattle,” I supplied. “We went separate ways after graduation but I ran into him again when I was visiting my uncle on Kodiak Island… Joe offered me a position at his clinic and I couldn’t refuse.”

“He’s done a lot of good wi’ that practice of his,” Brian commented. “Been a dream of his for some time now.”

Nodding, I smiled at the memory of Joe’s eager rants and rails, “He spoke quite a bit about it in school. I knew how much it meant to him and was eager to help him in his cause.”

“He almost worked himself to death before you came along,” Jenny snorted, then shot me an apologetic look. “Bein’ the only vet in the Northwest Borough made for long hours an’ no rest.”

“That’s why I wanted to come… to ease the burden a bit.”

“Well, then you’re a saint, Dr Claire,” she sighed, surmising with a shake of her head.

“No,” I assured her quietly. “I’m just plain old Claire Beauchamp.”

…  
Jamie.  
After Dinner.

“Wait just a minute,” I protested. “You walked here?!”

We were at the front door again, this time in full control of my faculties, but the woman before me was quickly turning out to be more of an complexity than I ever imagined possible.

Her brow furrowed at this, as if she hadn’t thought of the incongruity of her walking the mile from the Abernathy’s to here on foot.

“Yes… why?”

“Well, it’s… it’s just that…’’ I stammered, flummoxed. “Don’t you have somethin’ to drive?”

“Of course,” she looked at me as if I’d sprouted five heads from my shoulders. “I have a perfectly good vehicle, but why drive it four blocks when it’s beautiful outside and I can walk?”

I opened my mouth to respond to this and found I didn’t have a reasonable answer. She found great amusement in this and crossed her arms, waiting for me to respond.

Shaking my head, I gave it up and couldn’t help but smile as I offered to walk her home.

This took her by complete surprise and her jaw dropped, “Why?!”

“Well,” I pulled at the back of my neck, trying to come up with something and shrugged helplessly, “like you said… it’s a beautiful evening.”

Her brows nearly rose to her hairline, not buying this for one moment.

“Look, it’s the polite thing to do, aye? I know you live at the Abernathy’s because Joe told me… I’ll leave just as soon as you’ve made it to the front door, I promise,” I insisted. “Nothin more.”

She contemplated this, then clarified, “Just a walk?”

I dropped my hands, swinging my hands away from my sides in a clearing motion and then against them again with a soft pat.

“Just a walk.”


End file.
